


Give Me Mercy No More

by DownToSleep



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Abuse, Billy is a bastard with only some redeeming qualities, Derogatory Language, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Forced Orgasm, Past Abuse, Shower Sex, billy and reader both have mommy issues, billy is soft when he wants to be, plus size reader, reader has pre existing mental health issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-11 20:22:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19933942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DownToSleep/pseuds/DownToSleep
Summary: “Damn,” he said, sounding very impressed with himself “really did a number on you, didn't I?”The smirk in his voice was audible as he admired the blotchy, watercolor assemblage of purples, blues and green across your shoulders. Somehow, this was so much worse than the first time.





	1. Rough Start

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I've ever posted, I'm sorry if i didn't tag adequately enough. Stay safe and read at own risk.  
> Explicit descriptions of physical and sexual assault.  
> I avoid using (Y/N) (Y/L/N) and (Y/E/C) etc. in my reader inserts unless I have to. Readers weight is never explicitly described in an effort to be inclusive of all sizes but some lines speak in a derogatory way about plus size women. 
> 
> comments and kudos are appreciated very much.

The night you were attacked, was a pleasantly warm and humid one – which was something you very distantly remembered thinking before it happened. You hadn't been in your right mind. The event itself was all bared teeth and knuckles and rough edges in your mind. You remembered crying out, begging him not to do this, screaming that he was hurting you.  
Billy Hargrove, did not care what you felt. The pain he caused you was incidental; meaningless in the grand scheme. The hour long cat and mouse game he had orchestrated served as his foreplay – a catch and release program of his own design. He had gripped you just lightly enough for you to pry yourself away if you fought him hard enough, and would let you go just long enough to be a few paces ahead of him while he chased. He would catch you, beat you down again while shaming you for not running fast enough. You had cried and screamed and called for help as you fumbled over yourself through the sparsely wooded area surrounding the quarry. You had both known there was no one out there to hear you.  
When he did catch you for the final time, when you were too exhausted to claw his hands off of you. He had made quick and brutal work of the task at hand. He was everywhere around you and in you. The agony of him tearing you up tunneled your vision and stunned your voice into choked sobs. He sought no added thrills out of it; just the simplistic ecstasy of holding power over you.  
By the time he had finished, you were so far gone over the edge of hysterics you could barely form coherent words -which Billy thought was endearing and cute, but over all too much of a risk too leave laying around. He had taken you up into his arms, with more ease than you could comprehend in that moment. Even as you fought him, striking out at anything you could manage, he handled you gently, taking you to his car, then to your house, then to your bed.  
No one had been home, which was painfully normal and heartrendingly convenient for him. He had laid you out on your bed and sat next to you while mindfully stroking your hair. In that moment you had been sure he was going to attack you again, but he hadn't. He had simply sat with you and talked at you.  
“No one will believe you, you know -if you tell anyone.” he had said, smearing one of your tears over your cheek with his thumb “I'll tell them what a slut you are. How you threw yourself at me and begged me to fuck you into the mattress and cried rape when I didn't treat you like a princess.”  
You couldn't hold back the sob that raked through you.  
He quietly chided you, hushing you while he ran fingers though your hair. “Everyone will hate you.”  
He was right, which was the worst part. You couldn't tell anyone what he had done to you. Ever.

When you woke up the following morning, you could barely move. Every single fiber in your being and every atom that made you up throbbed and screamed at you in dull aches and sharp pains. Billy had thoroughly and devastatingly marked as much of you as he could lay hand on. Even the stretches of your skin that were not visibly bruised or marred in anyway hurt.  
The moment you managed to stand upright, a terrible wave of nausea rushed you. You barely had time to make it to the bathroom before you vomited. And for a moment, with your head in the toilet bowl as you heaved, you were convinced you were actually puking your guts out. The pain in your gut was more than just stomach cramps and more than just nausea. When you had finally finished and slowly made your way to the bathroom vanity where you were able to catch sight the the horrible black splotch on your stomach where Billy had kicked you. The tread of his boot clearly visible in the the still developing margins of the bruise.  
You surveyed yourself in the mirror, taking mental inventory of every mark and scrape and wound you could see. The backs of your shoulders had taken the brunt of the damage. The still flowering deep purple marks stretching out to meet one another and slowly forming into one mass of shapeless color. Your face had skirted by with nothing more than a fat lip and a faint black eye – which you knew would worsen before they got better but looked like they would fade quickly enough on their own. Hand prints were visible and in the slow processes of developing on your arms where he had held you and on your thighs where he gripped you. There were deep cuts on your shins and calves from the underbrush reaching out and snagging you as you sprinted through. They needed to be cleaned and possibly taped shut, but not stitched.  
Your mother had long since come and gone -her job at the post office requiring early mornings and her regular post at the bar requiring late nights. You were distantly relived she never bothered much with you anymore. The thought of her seeing your abused flesh and you having to make up an excuse -or worse still, her seeing the state of you and doing nothing to acknowledge it, not caring- made another round of nausea roll over you.  
Your mother was not a cruel, or unkind woman. She was simply a busy women and you hated to bother her with tedious things like skinned knees or black eyes. 

The office administrators at the high school knew you very well. They knew of your situation, and though they never explicitly discussed it with you, they pitied you. The daughter of a blackout drunk who had left her child to raise themselves -but not in a cruel or unkind way, you had always made sure they knew. After all, your mother was just so incredibly busy.  
When you called in to the front office and told them you would be out of class for the next week with the flu, they believed you. They were intimately aware of how much you enjoyed school and knew you wouldn't miss it if you didn't need to.  
If you had room in your chest to feel anything other than shame and loathing you might have felt bad for lying to them. But the truth was so much worse than the lie.

The week passed remarkably uneventfully. With each day that passed your body grew lass and less sore and your wounds eased into a dull but constant ache. You had successfully avoided your mother the entire time, which wasn't to say it was a difficult thing to begin with but you were thankful for it anyway. On a typical day she only ever spent a handful of hours at home. Between the hours of 1 A.M and 6 A.M were the only times you needed to be made scarce, and she was asleep for four of those five hours anyways.  
On Tuesday you had left a note on the bathroom door that said you needed money for lunches and on Wednesday morning a twenty dollar bill had been left on the dining room table. You walked to the grocery store and bought just enough food to last you through the week. You wanted to save the rest for actual school lunches, because you didn't want to ask for more until you had to. It was bad enough you had to do it at all and bothering her with something that seemed so trivial always sent guilty, shameful pangs through your chest.  
You had found out early on in your life what you were a product of. That your mother had been held down in the cab of an eighteen wheeler and raped. That you looked like him more than her and that looking at your face made your mother's chest hurt.  
Your mother had never told you that herself -because she was not cruel or unkind. You had found out by reading a letter to your grandmother she had left sitting unfinished on the counter. The rest of the letter had asked your grandmother to allow you to live with her, where your mother could watch you grow up from a safe distance. You found out much later that your mother had never sent it, when you stumbled across it in a drawer of miscellaneous papers while looking for a past due notice on the water bill.  
After you discovered the truth of your conception, you had done your very best to never need anything from her. To be as self sufficient as you possibly could. You had known even then how awful it must have been to to raise the child of the man who had hurt her in such a profound way. What it must be like to suffer in silent agony as she saw the face of her abuser every day in her own home.  
When you felt momentarily inclined to tell her what had happened to you, to seek comfort in the arms of someone else who had survived it, you shoved it down as far and deep as you possibly could. You wanted the comfort, but feared how she would respond. You were terrified that even though your mother was not cruel or unkind, that if she found out about it she might think that you had deserved what happened to you. That it was your birthright to suffer as your father had made her suffer. That it only made perfect sense you should feel all the pain and all the shame and all the guilt she had.  
It was true, of course, you couldn't disagree; but the thought of your mother thinking so as well was too much for you to bare. 

The first day back at school, after the bruises on your face had faded enough to be covered by makeup you had pilfered from your mothers room, you had managed to successfully avoid Billy the entire day. Not that it was a hard task to begin with. You had no overlap in friend group -which was to say that he had friends and you did not. No one in the school ever payed much mind to you in the first place. You were not liked and you were not disliked. You were just another face in the crowd. You had skirted by three and a half years of high school without ever drawing any attention to yourself. Even in a school as small as HHS, no one knew your name and the scant few who had a vague recognition of your face didn't ever bother remembering it. You were functionally invisible. To everyone but a Californian transfer student who had been in Hawkins less than a year.  
Your last class of the day was gym, which you very seriously considered skipping. You had decided against it only because the opportunity to dress down in private presented itself. Your gym shorts just barely covered the gruesome purple hand prints on your thighs but left the rest of you legs exposed. The coach saw the scrapes and the cuts just barely scabbed closed and recommended you sit out of class for the day – directing you back to the girls locker room to wait the period out in blissful isolation.  
Under normal circumstances you quite liked having gym at the end of the day. It was never a sure thing if the electric or water bill would be paid before the final notice and being able to reliably take a hot shower every day after the school emptied out was a luxury you weren't yet prepared to part with once you graduated.  
When the final bell rang students cleared out of the gym in a hoard, filling the locker room with an echoing pitch of noise and jovial conversation. You tucked yourself into a back corner between wall and locker to wait out the storm. Most girls opted out of taking a shower before re-dressing, preferring instead to go straight home to enjoy the comforts of home over public nudity and it didn't take long for the very last of them to trickle out through the back doors into the student parking lot.  
When you were certain the buses had all pulled out and the students parked in the lot had all left, you went to your locker and pulled your clothes out along with the toiletries you had stashed there. You set your clothes down on the bench and undressed. The only students left in the building were the ones on the basket ball team who had convened an emergency series of after school practices in the week leading up to the homecoming showdown with the town rivals. The sound of them in the boys locker room on the other side of the tile wall made you hesitate. Billy was not on the team but was known to surface at practices and skirmishes for no other reason than to assert his skill. But even if he was there today, he would be more preoccupied with that than you. And whats-more he would have no way of knowing you hadn't simply funneled out of the building with the other students. You continued undressing and folded your gym clothes neatly before placing them in your locker.  
You had spent most of your energy that day looking over your shoulder any time you felt eyes on you, scanning the crowd of faces for Billy. He had thankfully not made an appearance and by the time the day ended you were nearly convinced the events of last week was a one off occurrence and he was done with you now. And you desperately wanted a hot shower after today. 

There were certain perks to showering after the school day had ended. The hot water almost never ran out and you were able to comfortably see to your personal grooming without an audience. And when the distant noise from the other side of the tiled wall faded as the last of the boys headed to the gym you stepped into one of the shower stalls and under the hot fan of water. Your aching muscles relaxed under the heat and you stood there without moving for several long minutes. The bruising on your shoulders that had just barely started to fade to green around the margins disagreed with the weight of the water hitting them but you found it to be an oddly reassuring sensation. The tenderness of the skin there when the water hit it crying out louder than the pain in the rest of you body, one very nearly canceling the other out. The heat of the water calmed you, made the rest of the world fade away as you focused on the spray hitting your back.  
Several thumps and bangs sounded at the far end of the room, making you jump before you remembered that the wall between the locker room and the gym was particularly thin and when enough of a commotion is kicked up in the right spot the vibrations would sometimes make a loose pipe in the ceiling rattle against the other running along side it. You poked your head out of the stall and scanned the room – just in case. When you saw nothing you forced yourself to calm down. You were so very nearly completely certain Billy was done with you anyway, you reminded yourself. And even if by some horrific twist of fate he wasn't, even he wouldn't be stupid enough, or cocky enough, to try anything while on school grounds. It was just too risky. You set yourself back to your shower, shampooing your hair and shaving your legs along with the rest of your body hair. It wasn't so much that you wanted to, or that felt like being _appealing _to anyone in anyway in that moment -but it was a part of your routine and you desperately needed some sense of normalcy back in your life. It was easier to pretend that nothing had happened if you carried on with your life as usual.__  
When you had finished you wrapped a towel around yourself and placed everything back in your locker. As you did the thunderous roar of moving bodies and screeching shoes on polished wood sounded behind you. Practice was still in session and Billy would still be there. You had the perfect chance to escape out the back doors and through the student parking lot if you timed it just right. You would be home free and making the 30 minute trek home before the team had even finished their cool down showers.  
You rounded the corner of a bay of lockers, seeking out the secondary supply of towels on the far wall to dry your hair with, and stopped dead in your tacks. Billy Hargrove nonchalantly leaned against the wall of lockers, one foot up on the backless bench between the two rows. He lazily rolled his head to look at you. An easy and cruel smirk formed on his lips around an unlit cigarette.  
“Missed you last week, Sweetness.” He said slowly, a threatening edge to his otherwise conversational tone.  
Your face blanched, your blood running cold down to the pit that had opened up in your stomach at the sight of him. You averted your gaze from him, suddenly so intimately aware of your state of undress it was painful. You slowly began to back up, taking small careful steps away from him.  
He pushed himself up off the lockers and faced you fully, coming towards you , matching your pace in his approach.  
“Got awfully worried about you, you know.” the cigarette between his lips bounced as he spoke “Thought something terrible might have happened.”  
You flinched when his hand came out to caress a tangle of your wet hair; carefully wrapping it around his finger. After a long moment of silence he removed his hand from your hair, dropping it instead to your cheek. “Not gonna to say anything, huh?”  
“P-Please...” you managed through your trembling “Please just...just leave me alone.”  
He chuckled in response, as if finding it both pathetic and funny. “After we had such a nice time?” he blew a breath out through his pursed lips, bringing a hand up over his heart “Princess, I'm hurt.”  
You started and yelped when the hand not at your cheek darted out to cup the other side of you head. He tightened his grip on either side and pulled you forward, placing a kiss at the crown of your head. He held his lips to your wet hair for a moment, adding more pressure to his grip with each passing second before he pulled you into his chest. He roughly wrapped his arms around your shoulders to keep you in place as you weakly struggled against him  
“You're my girl now, Sweetness.” He began, giving you a rough shake to stop your squirming. “And that means things are gonna change.”  
Without warning he tossed you up against the wall of lockers and held you there with a hand at your throat. Your fingers went up to where his hand connected with your skin and clawed at his arm. You could breath but just barely. Pressure had already started to build up behind your face as your blood flow halted. Tears began to prick at your eyes as he spoke.  
“You can fight me all you want, but it wont change anything.” He pressed into you with his hips, lessening the pressure at your neck just enough for you to breathe. His free hand came up to your face, gently running a knuckle down your cheek.  
You desperately clawed and pried at his fingers, his wrist, his arm, any part of him you could get a good enough angle to have any leverage.  
“Fighting me 'll only make it harder on yourself. The more you fight-” He took your mouth into his and swallowed your anguished cry as you thrashed in his grip.  
He pulled away, seemingly pleasantly surprised at your outburst as he pinned your wrists above your head in a vice like grip with one hand before he continued “-the worse it'll get, Sweetness.”  
You cringed away from him when his mouth crashed over yours again, his teeth knocking against yours. You thrashed your head in any direction you could, desperate to get him off of you. The smell of stale beer and cheap cigarettes hung heavily in your nostrils with his closeness and it was making you feel ill.  
Your struggling didn't matter to Billy. One hand kept your wrists pinned above you while the other trailed down from your throat to hook a thumb inside the top rim the the towel you clutched around you. He yanked it away from you, tossing it into an unceremonious heap in the corner.  
You were in hysterics now; begging, crying, imploring him not to do this. The slap that came to your face was so sudden it took you half a second to realize why your vision had fuzzed around the edges and were seeing stars.  
Then Billy's hand came to your mouth, clamping down around your jaw so tightly you let out a scream into his palm.  
He brought his face close to yours, lowly speaking into your ear “If you don't shut your fucking mouth-” he punctuated his words by roughly shaking your head “-I'm going to beat you so bad your own mother wont recognize the corpse.”  
You sobbed into his hand, screwing your eyes shut tightly.  
He pulled his face away from yours so he could watch your reaction as he spoke “I'm going to take my hand away from your mouth – and you're going to stay nice and quiet, yeah?” he breathed out slowly.  
When you didn't respond he shook your head by the grip on your jaw and slammed your skull backwards into the metal. “ _Yeah?” he repeated through clenched teeth._  
You nodded into his hand and he slowly drew it away from your face.  
You stayed as quiet as you could through your heaving and shaking, letting out only a tiny, strained yelp when his hand ran down your thigh to cup your sex experimentally. You couldn't hide the grimace that deepened the lines of your face when he traced his middle finger back to front down the slit in your lips. You were still sore and swollen from your last encounter with him and the contact of his hand only served to remind you exactly how brutal he had been.  
When he retracted his hand from between your thighs and turned you around by a jerk at your hips and pulling of your wrists you sputtered. He curved his back just enough to get the arm not keeping your wrists in place wrapped around the front of your hips and pulled backward; forcing you to arch your back and splay your hips out towards him. When he nudged at the insides of your legs, spreading them further apart, you braced for the worst. Expecting him to enter you there and then, the event beginning and ending in that position. When he gently swooped the hair up off your neck and ran a finger down the line of your spine you jumped.  
He let out a slow whistle, remarking at the bruises he had left.  
“Damn,” he said, sounding very impressed with himself “really did a number on you, didn't I?”  
The smirk in his voice was audible as he admired the blotchy, watercolor assemblage of purples, blues and green across your shoulders. Somehow, this was so much worse than the first time. He had taken you quickly and severely. It was agonizing, but over fast. You had felt violated of course, but it was nothing like this. This sluggish exploration of you, taking his time in the inspection of his previous work.  
He released his hand from your wrists muttering a small “Keep them there.” to you as he did.  
From behind you, you could hear the shuffle of clothing as he disrobed. You dared not look back at him, or move from where he had positioned you for fear of drawing his ire. When the last of his clothes hit the floor with a clicking of his belt and jeans you again braced for the impact of him as the stiffness of his cock brushed lightly against your inner thigh. This was the hard part.  
“com'er-' he demanded, wrapping an arm around the small of your waist and tucking the other down beneath the backs of your thighs. He spun you around onto your back; forcing your wight into his arms and in one smooth motion he hoisted you up off the ground. He carried your weight easily, with barely a strain showing on his face as he walked you over to the shower stalls.  
You thrashed in his arms, kicking and clawing anything you could land a hit on to. He scarcely reacted to your struggling, setting you back down to your feet in the center-most stall. He leaned you up against the wall, his hand coming to your neck once again to keep you in place while his other sought out he nob to turn on the water.  
Frigid water rained down on the two of you, gradually turning from cold to tepid to warm. Billy finally turned his head back to yours , keeping his grip firm on your neck as he spoke.  
“Palms on the wall.” he said slowly. His hand tightened on your throat when you didn't immediately comply.  
You tentatively placed your hands flat along the shower wall at your sides.  
His lips quirked up in to a smug line across his face “That's my girl,” he said, dropping his hand from your neck.  
He spoke slowly and evenly while stroking the length of himself lightly “If I see you move your hands from where they are without permission, I'll break your fucking fingers. Understand?”  
Your lip had begun quivering again as you held back deep sobs that shook your entire diaphragm with them. You nodded at him, scarcely able to hold yourself up on trembling legs, signaling that whatever game he was playing had begun now that you knew the rules.  
You could barely feel the mild surprise in your chest over the mortified terror of not knowing what was happening when he lowered himself down to rest on one knee, his other leg propped up.  
He ran his hands down the crease of your closed thighs in unison, coming to a stop at the divots of your knees.  
He gingerly gripped each one, lightly pulling them apart “Spread.” he commanded, his voice just a few notches away from demeaning.  
You hesitantly obeyed, widening your stance until he signaled you to stop.  
He snaked his arm around your hips and gently tugged you further out from the wall; your back and arms now the only thing still making contact with the smooth surface behind you.  
He paused for a moment, his face hovering mere inches from your pelvis. The terrible shaking of your legs and the anticipation of pain had nearly done you in by the time his fingers came up to your core and gently parted your folds, slowly splaying you out open before him.  
You gasped, having to quell a shutter as he tenderly explored you with deft fingers; finding your entrance and ghosting over it, seeking the silky bundle of nerves at your front. He circled around it slowly with his thumb before using both his hands to spread you out again, wider this time. He brought his mouth up to connect with you, swirling his tongue over your clit experimentally to gauge your reaction.  
A sob raked though you and you were barely able to suppress the urge to cover your face in shame when he repeated the action; making easy passes over the most sensitive part of you with his tongue. He sucked and nibbled at you while keeping you spread open. When he slipped his middle finger into you without warning, he caught sight of your arm jerk, twitching outward at the elbow, as though you were about to raise your palm from its spot on the wall. He smirked into your mound when you forced your arm settle again, tensing it to prevent the involuntary movement. He slowly worked his finger out of you before adding another, making you jump, and whine as he kept a steady pace swiping his tongue over your clit. 

_____ _

He hadn't spent much time with you like this, during your previous encounter. That meeting being much more about establishing a physical dominance as opposed too enjoying himself while tormenting you -not that he hadn't enjoyed himself the last time you were together. But this, today, was about more than delivering a beating and fast fuck. Today was about the long term. About proving to you he could twist and turn and manipulate your body to work against you. To subject you to his whims for nothing other than prove you were powerless to stop him. It was the first chipping away of the barrier between the two of you.  
He had had someone like you back home, in California, before he had moved to the literal shithole that was Hawkins, Indiana. Someone who had been just shy enough, and just overweight enough to not value themselves. Someone just sad, and fucked up enough to not do anything about his abuse.  
Billy had always fucked whoever he wanted with no real regard for anything other than his desires in that moment, but that wasn't the same as what he was doing with you now -what he had done to the girl back home.  
_His _girls were special. The amount of time he spent breaking them in, training them, making them his, that amount of time couldn't be spent on any casual fuck. Certainly not.__  
You were special in that he had zeroed in on you within the first week of setting foot in Hawkins High School; always alone, never anyone to talk to. Hell, the first time he had ever even heard your voice was when he had cornered you last week at the quarry.  
And today he was finding out exactly how special you really were; with his mouth latched between your thighs and two fingers buried knuckle deep in you. As you squirmed and shifted under his ministrations. Soft, pitiful whimpers escaped you while he worked. He had never been with a girl quite so sensitive as you. Never with someone so responsive to him. Especially in the context your union.  
The girl who he had before you, who he had to leave back home, had taken fifteen minutes of steady and constant work on his part to get her to the threshold he had brought you to in less than three. And he actually had to break her fingers when he was done because she had swatted his head in an attempt to remove him. But you, with all your shaking and crying, had kept your hands in place and hadn't screamed out or begged since he had removed his hand from you mouth at the lockers.  
He wasn't even really sure he could call it training at this point because you were already so _good _.__  
Maybe just breaking you in.  
When your hips started to buck and jerk involuntarily into his mouth and you walls started to flutter around his fingers and you let out and terrible and pitiful sound of self loathing at your bodies own willingness to betray you, Billy removed his mouth and fingers from you. The hand from inside you going down to stroke himself idly, covering himself in your slick.  
You let out a sigh of relief, thankful that he hadn't actually brought you to orgasm. That would have been too much for you take.  
When he rose from his spot before you, he did so carefully as to not touch you or clue you in on what he was doing. You had had your eyes screwed tightly shut for the last five minutes and he wanted to savor the yelp you would let out when he entered you.  
He roughly pulled your hips forward, positioning himself outside your entrance with ease. You had just enough time to open your eyes to look at him questioningly before he gripped your backside and hoisted you up onto himself. He slammed into you, forcing your back to fully to the wall and hilting himself in you in the process.  
You let out a startled cry, feet just barely touching the floor, choking on your own voice. He stilled himself, manhandling you into an easier position  
“Hands up.” he barked, yanking one up to place it on his shoulder then the other.  
You looked at him rather pained, as a good third of your weight rested on the spot where the two of your pelvis' met -forcing his girth to bottom out in you, harshly pushing the head of his cock into your cervix.  
He groaned when you tried to shift your weight, biting back cries. You really were almost _too _tight to be able to enjoy properly.__  
In one smooth motion he pulled your legs out from under you and wrapped them around his hips, hands going to palm where the backs of your thighs met the globes of your ass and lifting you up by that spot to support you.  
He relished the sporadic clenching of you around him as he shifted you and with each sob that over came you.  
When he was finally able to maneuver you in a comfortable position and started pumping himself in and out of you, he felt something in you shift. Your inner ring of muscles spasming round him. For a moment he was almost too caught up in the sensation of it to realize what it was. One hand quickly came up to run circles over your engorged button, rubbing at a slow and even pace that made you jump and whine in his arms. Your fists balled at his chest, wrapping a few stands of his wet hair with them. He half expected you to start hitting him again as he rutted into you at a steady, but brutal pace.  
It took a total of four minutes of him being inside of you before you slipped over the edge into your oblivion. He swallowed the breathy scream you let out when your climax hit with his mouth as he rode you out, feeling the spastic clenching and fluttering of your walls milk him as he kept the pace of his thrusts into you until the painful overestimation set in and made you let out a whine into his mouth.  
He took your lip between his teeth and sucked at it, his hand beginning to rub circles over your clit again.  
You were clawing at his shoulders and and scratching at his neck, kicking your legs and jerking your hips trying to push him away. He bit down on your lip hard enough to taste blood when a well placed yank at one of the long segments of hair from the back of his head jerked his head backwards and away from you. He leaned his face into the crook of your neck and sunk his teeth into the flesh he found there. You let out a terrible scream and he slid you down the wall until his knees met the floor, taking your legs into his hands at the backs of your knees and pushing them up from his hips until you crumpled in on yourself, knees nearly touching the wall behind you. He sped his pace now that he had a better position to rail into you from; his thrusts becoming rougher and deeper with the new angle.  
He dropped one of your legs, leaving it to rest atop his shoulder while his hand went back to rubbing circles over you, this time harsh and fast to match his pace.  
At that time, just before his own climax, he couldn't seem to find it in himself to care about the amount of noise you were making. He held himself together until the last possible moment, waiting until your second orgasm hit you before letting himself fall into his own.  
He emptied himself deep into your quivering sex and held himself there to the hilt for several long moments as he rode out the after shocks.  
When he pulled himself out of you finally, he let your legs down and leaned into you, kissing your cheek an whispering into your skin “If no one was going to believe you before, I hate to think what they'll think of you now.” before he fully pulled away, rising to his feet.  
You didn't respond to him in any way, which irritated him. He turned away to rinse himself off under the shower spray, turning it off and stepping out of the stall when he had finished. He was not surprised by any means when you sunk in on yourself and balled up, motionless on the ground as he went to towel himself off and re-dress. He expected you to silently slink away while his back was turned – going off to lick your literal and proverbial wounds on your own.  
He brushed off the excess water on his skin and padded at his dripping hair lightly, keeping an ear out for any sound coming from your direction to indicate your movement. When he had fully redressed himself and stepped back into his boots without hearing anything, he rounded the corner, just to check that you had actually gotten up and left. A small twinge of panic set in when he laid eyes on you, exactly where he had left you slumped over on the cement flooring of the shower.  
Had he accidentally broken your neck? Or hurt you without realizing it, so severely you couldn't move? He slowly walked back over to you with long careful strides as he watched your face. He crouched down next to you, snapping his fingers in front of your eyes “Hey- Anybody in there?”  
He inspected you from a distance. There was no puddle of blood beneath you and your breathing was steady and unhindered. He saw no blood apart from the faint trickle out the corner of your mouth from where he had punctured the inside of your lip with his canine. When you didn't respond, face remaining unchanged as he waved his hand before you, he changed tactics; lightly smacking your cheek  
“You just being stubborn?” He questioned when he again got no reaction. He waited a beat before blowing a breath out his nose as he stood “Alright. Be that way.” He turned and aimed himself towards the exit, prepared to leave you there right up until he passed by the pile of clothes you had left on the bench next to your bag. He paused, halting himself to eye your belongings. He about faced and took a few steps back in your direction before turning again and pacing towards the door.  
He had recognized the waking-dead look in your eye, had seen it dozens of times before. And as his hand reached out for the door he caught himself and turned back again, stomping back the the bank of shower stalls. He couldn't leave you like this where anyone could come in to find you. You still had too many bruises and too much evidence of assault visible to the naked eye. He believed you wouldn't speak out against him. That you wouldn't seek out an audience to recount his actions to. But if he left you there and someone found you in this state? Assumptions would be made. And he didn't trust you yet not to speak against him if handed the opportunity. He hadn't broken you in that much. Yet.  
This was something he had to handle there and then, and quite begrudgingly so.  
When he reached you again, he cocked his hip and leaned on the barrier wall opposite you. “Last chance, Sweetness.” he said warningly, his eyes looking for any kind of response on your face with an impassive quirk of his brow.  
When he found none he blew out an exasperated breath “Have it your way, then.” He said, crouching down to grab up your shoulders and legs.  
That got a response. A startled yelp escaped your lips as you started slapping at his hands and chest, kicking out your legs to keep him from getting a firm enough hold on you to lift you.  
Billy tutted at you, scooping you up as he stood from his crouch regardless of your resistance to him.  
“You made your choice, Darlin'. Now you gotta live with it.” He rounded the corner and brought you to the bench where you had left your clothes and sat you down atop it.  
It was good, that you still with it enough to react to him. It meant that you were still forming coherent streams of thought at the very least. If that remained further into the night was unknowable. Your state of shock could improve from here and lighten, or it could worsen and slip into a full catatonic episode. It depended all on you.  
You couldn't look at him. The steady stream of self loathing tears that poured from your eyes made it easier to focus on his boots. You almost jumped when Billy pulled your shirt over your head and brought your arms through the sleeves. You started a bit at the contact, and distantly took note that he hadn't even bothered to demanded you do it yourself first. Your thoughts felt far away and your limbs even further. You could feel your mind slipping out and away from you as you sat, fading into a background of white noise.  
When he hoisted you up and stepped you into your pants -not even bothering with the indignity of putting on your bra or underwear first- your body reacted without a conscious knowing, a round of shuttering sobs taking over. You couldn't hear yourself anymore.  
He sat you back down and started with your shoes wordlessly, pulling them on and haphazardly knotting them into sloppy loops one by one.  
You felt so disgusting your skin crawled. You wanted to claw your own fucking eyes out. Wanted to let out a feral scream and claw _his _eyes out then peal yourself out of your skin; remove yourself from the indecency of your own flesh. But those thoughts were across a narrow sea from you; where you could ever so faintly make them out but couldn't reach, no matter how much water you treaded.__  
Billy tucked your bra into your book bag and pocketed your panties for himself, slinging your bag over his shoulder. You didn't fight him when he lifted you back up in his arms again. Weren't able to reach your limbs or even feel the shift of your weight when he re-positioned the arm supporting your shoulders so he could tuck your face into the crook of his neck while you silently cried into him.  
He made his way through the exit, pushing open the door with his back while carefully minding not to knock you into the door frame as he maneuvered back around to walk into the student lot.  
Playful voices surrounded the two of you, practice having let out not long ago. Handfuls of boys clumped together in the parking lot as they made their way to their respective cars; tossing jokes and banter around at each other. Billy could see his car from across the lot, parked off the gravel onto the grassy slope between the lane buses took to leave the lot and a row of now empty spaces. He had been running late this morning and arrived to find front of the lot full. He had weighed out the pros and cons of parking towards the back or just making a space of his own. He thanked himself now for deicing to make his own.The less distance he had to travel with you meant the less risk someone would catch sight of you in his arms. He had made it nearly fifty feet away from his passenger side door when Steve Harrington's voice called behind him.  
“Hargrove!” he shouted and Billy cursed inwardly when he heard Steve's heavy steps on the gravel jogging to catch up with him. “I would say we missed you at practice but-” he cut himself off upon getting a glimpse of you for the first time when he rounded Billy's front by pacing ahead of him a few steps. “What the fuck-”  
Billy side-eyed him nonchalantly, keeping his pace steady as he neared the Camaro.  
“What happened to her- what did you do-” He spat accusingly, stepping in font of Billy fully to stop him.  
Billy very nearly rolled his eyes before responding. “Rough day is all.” he sidestepped Steve “Just taking her home, Harrington.” He said as he brushed passed the other boy, his hand coming up instinctively to stroke your wet hair protectively.  
You couldn't make out what they were saying to each other, only faintly aware of Billy speaking at all. It didn't matter if he was talking to you or not. You had already passed beyond the precipice of shock and were tumbling inward on yourself. You had fisted your hands in the denim of his jacket and quietly shook and cried in his arms as the sound of his voice rolled over you without you hearing it.

_____ _

“What did you do.” Steve demanded again, speeding the pace of his step to stay ahead of Billy.  
“Found her in the west wing stairwell. Said there's some family troubles. I'm just trying to do the right thing here, Dipshit.” The Camaro was less than twenty feet away now. He just had to shake this jackass before he had a chance to see your face.  
“Since when have you cared about doing the right thing? And-and” he stammered, nearly tripping over his own feet as he struggled to out pace billy while walking backwards up the slope of the mound he had parked on “If you found her in the stairwell why do both of you have wet hair-”  
Billy kicked Steve's footing out from underneath him, sending him crashing down onto his side with a satisfying 'uhgnth' coming from his mouth.  
Billy paused, craning his neck to look down at him without jostling you “Any other day, Harrington, I'd be happy to give you another beating but I've got my hands full here.” Steve had stood himself back up and Billy glowered at him, speaking in a low voice “The lady has already had a hard enough day. You're just making it worse, pretty boy.”  
The two locked gazes for a moment, daring the other to cave. Steve broke the contact first, his attention drawn behind him when his name was called by one of the other boys. Billy raised his brows expectantly when Steve turned back, shooing him away with his look.  
Steve huffed and eyed you one last time before turning away after being called for again.  
Billy watched him walk away until he was a comfortable enough distance away to ensure there was no possible way he could catch sight of your face before he turned himself and brought you up to the passenger side door. He leaned down to open it, using the frame of the car to support some of your weight while he did. He set you down in the seat gently, pulling back to eye you for a moment. Your face was red, and splotchy, lashes bunched up from tears, eyebrows and mouth twisted up into and agonized frown. He found it quite cute. He crouched down on his hunches to your eye level so he could pull the seat belt across your body and fasten it with a click. Feeling Steve's eyes still on him, he leaned into you and placed a kiss at the top of your head; holding his mouth in place just a few more moments than necessary for show.  
You lowered your head underneath his lips, head too heavy too hold up under the weight of the day. He stroked your thigh tenderly, before standing and straightening his back. He twisted and stretched his torso after closing the car door. He hadn't dead lifted anyone your size in long time. He was going to have to start beefing up his training regimen if he planned on carrying you around frequently; which he did.  
He scanned the parking lot, making brief eye contact with Steve who had made it 60 or so paces back and was watching the interaction between the two of you closely. Billy raised his arm, giving the other boy the bird as he rounded the hood of the car. With any luck, Harrington would let it go, assuming Billy had a soft spot for fat chicks and leave it at that. At worst Billy would have to strong arm you into telling a convincing enough lie to throw Steve off the trail.  
He started the car and peeled out, turning up large patches of dirt and grass from under the wheels of the Camaro as he did. It was a solid ten minute drive from the school to your house, even with Billy flying down the roads at speeds nearing twice the limit at times. Ten minutes of blissful silence. Your hiccuping sobs had quieted down before you left the locker room and the near constant stream of tears that had replaced them ebbed to an uncomfortable sandpaper grit behind of your eyelids. 

Billy pulled into the driveway and wondered absently how long it took you to make that walk everyday. He got out and rounded the front of the car to the passenger side, opening it and again not even giving you the option to do anything yourself. He reached in and undid your safety belt with one hand while wrapping your arms around his neck with his other. He pulled you up and out of the seat and then hoisted you up with a jerk and a well placed hand at your back to support your weight while holding you close to him. Your pelvic rested at his navel and legs hung limply at the sides of his hips and he had to lean back slightly to keep firm grip on you.  
You hadn't realized you had begun crying again until he cooed at you softly “We're almost there, Sweetness” he said into your ear. The arm not holding you up pulled out your key ring from his jacket pocket. You hadn't even realized he had taken from your bag. He unlocked the door and stepped you inside over the threshold. Now that you were in private the part of you still too far away to reach prepared for another assault; for insults and blows to the face. But they never came. He simply walked you back to your bedroom and sat you down on the edge of your bed.  
You flinched from his touch when he started undressing you; that part of yourself in the back of your mind bracing for the worst. But again it never came, turning instead to your chest of drawers when he had finished. He rummaged around in it until he found a pair of panties suitable to his tastes and a t-shirt ratty enough and baggy enough to have been resigned its only use being as a sleep shirt.  
He pulled the shirt down over your head and snaked your arms through the sleeves with a touch so gentle it burned your skin. He stepped your legs into the green striped panties and drew them up to your thighs before lifting you up just enough to pull them up to your hips.  
It was the tenderness in his touch that sent you over the edge this time. You lashed out at him. With weak, tired arms and tiny balled fists you swiped at him and his closeness. Tried to shove him and his unwavering presence away as he sat down next to you.  
He paid little mind to your meek attempts, instead opting to gather you up in his lap. He cradled your head into his shoulder while you cried into the denim of his jacket. His hand hand ran up and down your spine and he whispered soothing words to you as you wailed.  
“Get it out,” he said to you softly, the hand not at your back coming to run though your damp hair “get it all out.” he slowly rocked you in his arms, waiting out the storm.  
This was not the first time he had done this; cared for someone in your state. He had never had to do it with one of _his _girls before, and it had been years since he had last had to do it -but it was a lot like riding a bicycle. There was an innate part of him that took to caring for women when they were too broken to do it themselves. He had Neil Hargrove to thank for that.__  
His father had often left his mother in states like these; numb to the world and too broken to move. She was particularly susceptible to becoming paralyzed under the weight of her own mind. Billy had started stepping in to help with the aftermath when he was very young. Neil always left right after, when it was bad enough. He wouldn't return sometimes for days at a time and left Billy to pick up the pieces still left of his mother. He would do anything he possibly could to ease her suffering. Had helped her bathe, and dress herself. Had tended to her wounds and made sure she ate at least twice a day.  
He noted to himself that it was a lot easier to now that he was older, big enough to lift person with minimal effort. He didn't have to sit for hours, talking at you until he as able to convince you to move on your own. It had streamlined the process slightly; being able to pick you up and carry you into the next task. He appreciated how much simpler it made it.  
He held you until you quieted down, continuing his rhythmic rocking of you. He didn't want to move you yet. He knew that the lull of false security you had found would pass the moment he shifted. And then you would be in pain again, in an agony that ran so deep your mind shut itself off to escape it.  
He stirred, slowly at first, shifting you cautiously. “Do you feel up for walking?” he asked, gently pealing you off his shoulder to gauge the reaction on your face.  
You looked pained, and distraught, and didn't respond.  
“That's fine -that's okay.” he said, brushing a tangled lock of hair away from your face.  
He shifted your weight, bringing his arms under your again to lift you up with him as he stood. He carried you to the kitchen at the other end of the house and set you down atop the counter next to the stove, only taking his hand off you when he was sure you could stay upright on your own.  
He set himself to poking around the kitchen, opening cupboards and drawers and the fridge; looking for anything he could warm up on the stove or in the microwave. Everywhere he looked he found bare shelves, and he wondered how you survived here. Was the only time you ate while you were at school?  
What did you do on the weekends? Say what you will about Susan, but at least she kept the kitchen stocked.  
Eventually he found two cans of soup in a far corner of the back pantry behind a line of empty bottles of cheap vodka. He returned to you and held them out before you.  
“You feel like tomato or-” he glanced at the label on the other can “-cream of celery?”  
When you turned your face away, casting your eyes down at the vinyl flooring instead, he didn't react in any way other than blowing a heavy breath out though his nose. He stepped away from you, eyeing the nutrition facts of the two, comparing protein and calorie counts. You would need every bit of nutrition he could offer you. It wasn't like he could feed you three squares a day. Cream of celery won out with a higher count of both categories.  
“Microwave, or stove top, Sweetness?” he asked over his shoulder as he pulled a bowl from the cupboard and spoon from a drawer which he pocketed.  
When you remained quiet he filled the empty air between the two of you as if you had responded.  
“Yeah,” he began, one hand reaching for the can opener “stove top is probably better anyways.”  
It took him exactly fifteen minutes to bring the soup to a boil, empty it into the bowl, set it aside to cool, rinse out the pot, and return it to where he had found it. In that time he had eyed you every minute or so; checking to make sure you remained steady and upright while he worked.  
“You wanna eat at counter?” he asked as he reached for a hot pad, speaking to the air over his shoulder. “Yeah, the table would be good too.” He had become a master at keeping his voice a steady balance of light and casual, airy and upbeat, over the years of doing this for his mother. He had learned quickly that if you pretend everything is fine eventually it will be.  
He walked the bowl to the table in the dining room first with the hot pad under it, before coming back to you and putting a gentle hand on your back  
“Do you want to walk or do you want me to carry you?” He asked, carefully minding his tone to speak as if this were a normal, nonchalant experience.  
You hated how easy this was for him, and you hated that he was so willing to help you. It would have been so much simpler if he had just beaten you again. If he had left you in the locker room or dumped you out of his car on the curb outside your house. You had already felt weak, and powerless, and now you felt shame at the sickly feeling of needing him. You concentrated on pushing yourself off the counter, all your hate of him fueling you to fight through the haze that kept your limbs from your control and when you slid yourself to the floor onto unsteady feet you felt relief and indignant spiteful smugness. You could still do this. You didn't need him.  
Billy crowded your space, keeping his arms not far from your sides so that if you fell he could catch you before you hit the ground. “Atta girl, Sweetness.” he praised as you took a handful weak, trembling steps, using the counter as crutch to steady yourself while Billy stayed at your side. When your legs gave out from underneath you, he was right there to catch you up in his arms again.  
“Oh- Okay-” he said, your weight leaning on him as he pulled you up “That's okay.” he soothed, rubbing your back as he carried you to the table.  
He propped you up in one of the chairs and again didn't leave your side until he was sure you would stay upright. He brought the bowl and hot pad over to rest before you, pulling the spoon he had pocketed from his jeans and setting it down next to it; and invitation to begin eating on your own.  
He dragged a chair next to you and sat himself in it while studying your face. Red eyes, glassy and swollen, hollowed out features. He had gotten to know that look well growing up. He could tell you weren't ready.  
“Do you feel like eating yourself, or would you like help?” He asked anyways, giving you the space to at least try, to move, or twitch, or look at him, to do anything to show you were even conscious and aware of what as happening.  
It had been a neat little party trick you pulled out of your hat; taking those couple steps. He hadn't expected it. But by the look of your face now, and how long he had waited for you to respond to him, he felt it was safe to assume you had nothing more stashed up your sleeves.  
“It's okay,” he said to your def ears “I don't mind doing it.”  
He picked up the spoon and filled it, bringing it to your lips “Open-” he commanded gently.  
A stray tear slipped from the corner of your eye as you faintly recalled the last time he had given you a command was in the shower. You turned your head away from him, and prayed he would leave you alone.  
Billy persisted, however. Bringing the spoon back to your lips and repeating his request.  
You obliged after a moment, the well of self loathing and guilty shame in your chest filling up that much more.  
He repeated the action with gentle prodding of your lips instead of asking you to open your mouth as he brought spoonful after spoonful before you.  
You felt disgusting, and foul. Like your insides were rotting and swelling up with puss and decay behind your skin. How repellent and vile did someone have to be to let their rapist spoon-feed them? You imagined it ranked you far below the dregs of society; to be letting this happen. You wanted nothing more than to swat his hand away. To slam your fists down on the table. To upend the bowl in his face and run from him. To do anything other than sit their placidly and let this continue on. But your arms and legs were out of your reach now; wrapped up tightly with gauze and spider silk, your head stuffed with sawdust.  
You couldn't keep track of how many mouthfuls he had given you, but by the fourth time you managed to turn your head away from him, he just set the spoon down in the bowl.  
“I think that's enough for now too.” He got up, taking the bowl to the sink and rinsing it out before he set it down and circled back to you.  
“Let's get you back to bed, Sweetness.” he murmured softly as he bent to pick you up. You tensed when one of his hands momentarily used the spot on your back that was still bruised and swollen from last week to get enough leverage to get you up off the chair.  
“Easy- Easy-” He shushed into your ear “ It's alright.”  
He returned you to your unmade bed, laying you down and pulling the duvet up to your chest.  
You prayed he would leave. Begged whatever god was out there to send him away. When he removed his jacket, shirt and shoes and climbed in under the covers next to you, you cursed whoever had been listening.  
Billy settled himself in, pulling you towards him so he could tuck his arm under your head and hold you into his bare chest.  
You weren't sure exactly when you fell asleep that night, but when you woke the next morning you were alone. The morning light from your windows bearing down on your tired eyes.


	2. Cigarette Butts & Shattered Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You're _my _girl now,” he put careful stress on the possession behind 'my' which made you grimace as he continued “and like it or not, that means it's my responsibility to take care of you.”__  
>  Your face twisted up in horrified disgust. Your head snapped to face him; mouth opening to retort, or express your loathing of him with a blind fury, to balk at what he defined as 'care' when every bruise, cut and scrape on your body was from him.  
> He held and finger out at you with his free hand, silencing your voice before it even arrived. His eyes held yours steady with a tightly controlled expression “Manners.” He cautioned, rising his brows at you; daring you to defy him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter closely studies the thought processes of both Billy and the Reader.  
> Trigger warnings for mention of eating disorder(s) and disordered eating habits.  
> Thank you to all of you who received the first chapter with kindness and encouragement.  
> The current working goal is to have a chapter up once every week and a half (every 10-12 days).  
> Comments and kudos feed me.

The events of the day before felt hazy, and distant in your mind. A thick barrier of fog laying between you and your memory. You could faintly recall the locker room, then a blur of movement and noise. You think Billy had taken you home after he had finished with you, but you weren't sure. You think he was in your house, in your bed, but you weren't sure. You frankly didn't want to be sure. Having to remember the the awful events of the locker room was bad enough.  
You heaved yourself up out of bed, suddenly very determined to not miss school that day; even if the thought of going felt akin to going up next before a firing line. It had been made clear yesterday you weren't safe at school, and if the vague inclination you had about Billy being in your house was even distantly true, you weren't safe at home either.  
So what was the point of missing school? At least there you had a fighting chance. If you avoided being alone, or hid yourself well enough before Billy had the chance to lay eyes on you, the odds were in your favor that he wouldn't be able to do anything. Sitting alone at home in an empty house seemed much more dangerous.  
You dressed and readied yourself for the day; brushing out knots in your hair so you could wear it down, long enough to act as a shield between you and the world. By the time you were fully dressed and ready to go you had already spent ten minutes searching for your book bag. It seemed to have fallen off the very face of the earth and you were running twenty minutes late before you gave up and decided you must have left it in your gym locker. School started in twenty minutes and you had a thirty five minute walk ahead of you. You snagged the spare set of keys hung by the door as you left -just in case you couldn't locate your bag and your house keys with it.  
When you stepped out of your front door, locking it behind you to begin your trek to school your blood ran ice through your veins. Pulled along side the curb was Billy's Camaro, idling there where he waited in the front seat. He gave you a cocky half-handed wave and leaned over to open the passenger side door.  
You clenched your jaw and ran over your options in your mind. You could run; but he would chase you down easily. You could turn back, go inside and lock all the doors; but if he really wanted in he would find a way.  
He leaned over again, eyeing over the rim of his aviators “Comon, Sweetness!” he called through the open door “I don't have all day.”  
The blood drained from your face as you resigned yourself to your fate and slowly made your way to the passenger side door. After you had lowered yourself in Billy tossed your book bag into your lap as he peeled away from the curb.  
“Forgot that yesterday, Sweetness.” He said with a smirk.  
You had barely noticed the young girl sitting in the backseat; might have missed her entirely if she hadn't spoken. “Are we going to be doing this every morning?” She asked with all the dry maliciousness someone of he stature could muster.  
“I don't know, Max.” He spat out her name, the venomous sarcasm in his voice making you flinch inwardly.  
“Billy,” Her voice was very near a whine without crossing over the line into one “you have to tell me if we're going to leave ten minutes early to pick up one of your floozies every day so I can-”  
“Shut it, _Max_.” He snapped while shifting gears roughly, eyeing her in the rear view mirror.  
You shifted in on yourself uncomfortably, trying to make yourself as small as possible in the seat. Was that what you were now? A floozy? You nearly jumped out of your seat when Billy's hand came down on your thigh. He didn't move it or tighten his grip, just let it lay there between gear shifts as he drove.  
When he came to a stop in the student parking lot you scarcely had time to recoil away from him when he yanked you across the center console, pulling you close to him so the girl in the back could push your seat forward and barrel out of the car wordlessly through the passenger side door.  
He released you after placing a soft kiss into your hair “And how are we feeling today?” he asked with a taunting edge to his voice.  
“I-...I'm fine.” You averted your gaze as you spoke, eyeing the movements of the students outside through he windshield.  
He studied your face, an uninterested if not menacing quirk to his brow visible over his sunglasses. “How much of yesterday do you remember?”  
You bit your lip, dipping your head to let your hair fall to shield your face. “Not-...Not much, just-” You had to stop to take a breath, fists balled up around the strap of your bag. “just the locker room.”  
He nodded, that quirk in his brow replaced by a smooth curve of his lips. “Alright, Sweetness, here's the deal.”  
Outside the first bell had rung and students were filing in; leaving the lot empty save for a few stragglers. You felt more vulnerable and exposed than ever as he spoke.  
“I'm going to do what I want, where I want. And if I tell you to do something, you do it, or face the consequences. Yeah?”  
A tear escaped your lashes and you nodded.  
“In return, I don't tell this entire armpit of a town what a whore you are and your life stays relatively the same. Yeah?”  
You nodded again.  
“Good.” He said with finality to his voice, turning off the ignition and getting out, motioning for you to follow suit as he did. He caught your attention over the roof of the car after you closed the passenger side door. “If Harrington or anyone else tries to talk to you, about anything, I want you dead silent. Capiche?”  
You gave a curt, somber nod in return.  
“Good. Now get to class.” He shooed you away, lighting a cigarette as he watched you scurry up to the entrance.  
He couldn't tell if he was pissed you didn't remember last night or relived. Probably a little more relived than pissed. If you had remembered chances were you wouldn't be functional right now, and that would create an entire mess of problems for him. He hadn't expected you to shut down like that yesterday. He didn't think he had pushed you all that far. But you had already proven you were different from the others in more way than one. You would require a different approach, and Billy wasn't one to back down from a challenge. If you needed to be handled with kid gloves for the time being, he could manage that.  
The way you dipped your head when he spoke, barely dared to make eye contact with him, filled him with a comfortable scene of peaceful superiority. You fought his contact with you, but not his dominance over you. It was an enticing tightrope walk between submission and defiance he found hard to resist.  
The fact that you had already been teetering on the edge of your breaking point before he even met you? That made you perfect.  
You suited his needs better than any of the handful of women he has begun and ended this process with; better than Juliet, the one who had actually made the cut. He had kept her around for awhile, would have kept her longer if it weren't for his relocation. But you? He couldn't see himself letting you go any time soon. You just might have been the best thing about this slum of a town.

The school day passed with relative normalcy for you. Your first four periods of the day going by without a single person so much as sparing a glance in your direction. Which was revealing in its own way, to not have eyes on you, for no one to be able to look at you and read the shameful self loathing on your face. And it made it easy to follow Billy's command. You were sick with yourself for your willingness to comply his will; but the sickly weight of terror sat heavy in your chest at the thought of disobedience.  
When the bell for fourth period let out for lunch hour and students piled into the halls, all funneling towards the cafeteria, you stayed put. You remained seated in the classroom while slowly gathering up your things into your bag. Usually you only ever ate while at school, never wanting to bother your mother with silly things like groceries or dinner. But today you had no appetite and the thought of lining up to get food, then having to actually eat it made you physically repulsed.  
You waited until the halls quieted down before you slowly and cautiously made your way to the south wing of the school where all the arts subjects were taught. On a typical day the dark room for photography would be occupied and the drama studio and band room would fill up with band and drama students respectively, looking to avoid the fray of the lunch room. The only saving grace was the block of sound proof studio rooms that connected the band and drama rooms by a narrow hallway at the back of each room. They were used for students to practice their instruments without disrupting others but rarely served that purpose anymore. You had discovered them your second year and had been spending lunches and free periods in them ever since; you much preferred them to the library that had been claimed by burn-outs as a good place to wait out the high before returning to class.  
You reached the bank of rooms before the band room filled up and were able to sneak in without anyone seeing you. You had always been mildly surprised the only windowless and soundproof places in the school weren't more popular with the student body at large as a place to fool around in; you suspected most people who weren't in drama or band were not even aware of their existence. They were a well kept secret among those at the bottom of the proverbial food chain. You slipped into _your_ booth and felt confident Billy Hargrove wouldn't ever be able to find you there. It was more than likely he didn't even know the layout of the south wing beyond the art room.  
Your booth had a modest and to beat to hell piano tucked into it. The piano was showing its years with scratches and dings and terrible renditions of initials from different graduating classes of band students carved into it. The last class to have left their mark was in '74. Seniors had taken to carving their names somewhere else in the last decade and the piano felt tired, and melancholy in its own right. It had been abandoned, the tradition somehow being overlooked or never passed down. You were happy to at least be able to show your appreciation to it, even if you were one of the last ones to do so.  
Since discovering the studios, you had always actually enjoyed your lunch hours. You were able to get away from other students and feel secure and comfortable in them while eating. You had only ever been interrupted once or twice and were always immediately left alone when they saw it was already occupied. The band kids were nice like that, when directly faced with you. They probably didn't know your name and wouldn't be able to pick you out of a line up, but they weren't indifferent to you while you were in front of them. You were fond of them for that reason alone.  
You settled yourself in as you always did; tucking yourself in the small space between the far side of the piano and wall. It was just wide enough a space to accommodate your shoulders snugly and just deep enough to almost obscure your form entirely should anyone open the door. They would be able to see someone was there, but not your face. It made you feel safe and hidden, and like you could breathe for the first time that day.  
The notebook you kept your personal writings in hadn't been touched in several days and you pulled it from your messenger bag to splay it open atop your thighs. It wasn't a diary, or a journal. It was much more a way to organize your thoughts. It was filled with to do lists and important things to remember, the odd bout of poetry, short stories and excerpts from books you would never get around to writing. Like a dairy, it was an inherently personal thing, and no ones eyes were allowed to touch it but yours. And like a diary, you kept it guarded from the world. But unlike a diary there were not daily entries or logs of goings on. No secrets you dared not speak aloud. It was nothing more than a spillage of creativity onto the page; a sketchbook of written word. There was no shame or secrecy there. Just the fact that you didn't feel like sharing it with anyone -not that you had anyone to share it with in the first place.  
You pulled out your pen and began scribbling down a list in a messy but legible scrawl. You wrote out all the places Billy frequented and all the places you should avoid at all costs if no other students were around. When you had finished that list you started one of all the places you could hide he wouldn't know about; weighting out the chances of him stumbling across the location of each one before writing it down.  
You were so caught up in that and so confident Billy would have no way of finding you that when the soft click of the door opening sounded you didn't even flinch. “Sorry, Someone's in here.” You said, not even bothering to look up from your notebook.  
“There you are, Sweetness.” Billy's voice sounded out in the small room, making you freeze like a deer caught in headlights. “Been looking _all over_ for you.” he emphasized his words to make it clear he had known exactly where you were the entire time.  
You could hear him step into the room and close the door behind himself, making your stomach do flips into your chest. How stupid could you have been? Of course he knew the studios and of course he knew they were windowless and soundproof. No one would even hear you scream. No one but him even knew you were in there. Your hand fisted your pen as he drew nearer to you; ready to use it to fend him off if you had to.

Billy approached you slowly, holding an apple and can of soda he had stolen off the tray of someone in passing. He had scanned the lunch room, looking the line of people waiting to pay for their food up and down for your face. After five minutes of not seeing you he realized you had opted out of the luxury of food that day just to avoid him. It was smart of you, assuming he didn't know about all your hiding spots, he had to give you credit for that. After all, you had no way of knowing he had kept an eye out for you in the months leading up to your first encounter with him. He had gotten a feel for your schedule and routines, made easier by the fact that you were a creature of habit by nature.  
He took careful steps, coming into your line of sight with a slight curve in his back as he towered over your from your position on the floor. You looked terrified, which he found appealing, but that wasn't the point of today.  
“Nice little spot you got here.” He commented while lowering himself down on the wall directly opposite you. There was just barely three feet of space between where the bulk of your two bodies rested against opposing walls.  
He leaned himself back, letting his head fall back onto the wall and drawing his knees up under his extended forearms to support them. He carefully eyed you for a moment, gauging your reaction.  
When you remained stock still, clutching at your pen with white knuckles, he continued on to fill the silence.  
“I've been in your kitchen, you know.” His eyebrow jumped at the small, almost imperceptible wince you made at that. “School's the only place you eat right?”  
You tore your paralyzed gaze away from him, opting instead for the piano on your left.  
It was clear to him that you didn't like him knowing something he wasn't supposed to; could tell it made you wonder what else he knew that he wasn't supposed to. Which was fine in his eyes, because he did know a lot about you that you didn't want him to.  
He blew out a heavy sigh “Sweetness,” he began “I can't have you skipping meals.” he set the can of soda down and started tossing the apple between his hands casually. “It's not good for you.” A muscle in your jaw clenched and his lip twitched at it.  
“Why do you even care.” You bit out at him, shooting daggers at the side board of the piano; still to afraid to look his direction.  
He sucked his teeth at you, halting his back and fourth of the apple to fist it in one hand as he spoke “You're _my_ girl now,” he put careful stress on the possession behind 'my' which made you grimace as he continued “and like it or not, that means it's my responsibility to take care of you.”  
Your face twisted up in horrified disgust. Your head snapped to face him; mouth opening to retort, or express your loathing of him with a blind fury, to balk at what he defined as 'care' when every bruise, cut and scrape on your body was from him.  
He held and finger out at you with his free hand, silencing your voice before it even arrived. His eyes held yours steady with a tightly controlled expression “Manners.” He cautioned, rising his brows at you; daring you to defy him.  
Your mouth snapped shut as your recoiled inwardly. You had lost all anger in that moment; that white hot indignant rage replacing itself with fearful regret the moment you had met his unwavering gaze.  
“That's better.” he chided, retracting his finger and returning to his original sentiment. “Now, like it or not, Sweetness, it's my business to make sure you're doing basic things-” he threw the apple back into his other hand “ _like eating_ ” he enunciated accusingly.  
You drew your lip in between your teeth to stop its quivering, your gaze returning to the piano.  
“So,” He said slowly “we're going to sit here, while you eat this-” he waved the apple in his hand at you  
“and drink this-” he picked up the can of soda again. “and we're not going to move until you've finished.”  
Hot, hateful tears spilled out of the corners of your eyes and Billy wanted nothing more than to reach over and lick them off of your face -but that was for another day.  
When you refused to respond to him, choosing instead to remain as stubbornly silent as you dared, he spoke “I've got all day, Princess.”  
You were sure it was a threat; and you believed it. When he carefully stretched his arm out to you to offer you the apple then the soda, you took them -cautiously meeting his reach half way before pulling back into your tight ball between wall and piano. You sat for a moment with them in your hands, looking them over as if dumbstruck.  
He raised his brows at you, motioning for you to get on with it with a roll of his wrist.  
You swallowed the lump in your throat and hesitantly took a bite of the apple under his steady eye. And then another and another until your reached the core. It felt like sand in your mouth, going down your throat to sit in a heavy mound in your stomach. You paused and looked to him with his relaxed posture across from you.  
He tightened his expression at your hesitancy “And now the soda.” he rolled his wrist at you again; expectantly prompting you to continue on.  
You compiled, popping the tab of the can and taking slow sips of it. It ran as acid down to meet the ashy sand of the apple in your belly.  
Billy silently watched you until you had finished it, rolling his head back against the wall lazily when you had set the empty can down. You dared not move with his eyes still on you.  
“You can't skip meals.” He said out of the silence “I don't care if you're not hungry that day. You eat. No matter what. Yeah?”  
You nodded to signal your obedience.  
“Use your words.” He scolded, an anticipatory edge to his tone and expectant quirk to his brow.  
“Yea- Yeah.” You managed to get out, keeping your eyes cast downward at the carpeted floor between the two of you.  
“Good.” He said with finality; closing the book on this chapter. He knew this wouldn't be the last time he had to sit you down and watch you eat just to make sure that you did. But that was enough for today. You didn't need anymore pushing than this and what he had planned for you after the school day ended.  
“Take your shower after final bell. I'll pick you up after practice.” He lifted himself up, leaning in on his knees to invade your space before adding “There will be hell to pay if you're not there.”  
He stilled himself before you to show he expected an answer from you.  
You bit your lip harder and nodded, your brows furrowing up on your forehead.  
He nodded in turn, accepting your nonverbal answer. He leaned into you closer, his hands coming up to cup the sides of your face so he could pull you forward to place a kiss at space that creased between your eyebrows. And then he was up and out of the room, taking the empty soda can and apple core with him as he went.  
You scarcely had time to throw your things in your bag and sprint to the nearest bathroom before you heaved up the contents of your stomach into the toilet. The girls you had dashed passed on your way in who were at the mirror overlooking the sinks snickered from outside the stall.  
“Trying to fit into that homecoming gown, fattass?” One of them called.  
“Who designed it, Ms. Anna Rex or Ms. Bell Imia?” A second one chimed in as they made there way out through the door, still snickering at their self satisfied joke.  
You didn't move from the stall until the bell signaling the end of lunch hour and the bell for the following period had both let out. You cautiously gathered yourself up and headed for sixth period on unsteady feet.  
The last two periods of the day dragged on, each tick of the clock bringing you closer to the end of the day and closer to whatever unknown plans were had for you there. It occurred to you, of course, to defy him -to run home and lock yourself in to wait out his wrath. But you had already paid hell once before you didn't think you could survive it again.

After school practice was short, half an hour at most. Billy couldn't say he minded. After dropping Maxine off at home and driving back with you on his mind, he was in no mood to actually play the game. He really only went to take some of his aggression out on the players so he could approach you with a level head.  
When it finished, he showered and cooled down, ignoring the opportunities he had to torment Harrington and only half listening to the one-sided conversation Tommy H. was having with him. His mind drifted to the other side of the wall where you would be at this very moment. The thought of you anxiously looking over your shoulder at every sound and having to steal yourself to relax every time you turned and he wasn't there made him pick up his pace.  
He finished, redressing and toweling off his hair before Tommy had even stepped out of the showers. He casually made way for the exit, going to lean on the passenger side door of the Camaro, before Tommy or any of the other scabs even noticed he had left.  
Billy's eyes scanned the parking lot and the exits for you. None of the other boys had even made it out of the locker room when he did finally catch sight of you; your hair was wet and messy and clung to your cheeks in drab tangles. You held a text book and notebook close to your chest like a plate of amour and dared not make eye contact with him as you made your slow approach.  
He was mildly surprised to see you weren't crying when you got close enough to see your face; your eyes were red rimmed and puffy, like you had been recently, but no more.  
He flicked the cigarette he had been working on off to the side and pushed up from the car, opening the passenger side for you in a smooth motion.  
You only hesitated for a moment before getting in and it made something in his chest swell with something similar to pride. He slammed the door shut behind you and rounded the front, eyeing you through the windshield as he did.  
You were pale, the rims of your eyes red and tired looking, the exhausted bags under your eyes were dark enough to be mistaken for fresh black eyes in the right light. You looked frail, and weak, and so terribly small; crumpled in on yourself in his front seat. It was par for the course, an unavoidable side effect of his methods -though you had taken to them more than he had expected you to. Just another reminder to him that as special as you were in all your natural submissive demeanor and physical sensitivity, you were just as weak and vulnerable to bouts of anxious panics and stress induced disassociation. He would have to proceed slowly with you. Which wasn't something he minded, seeing as how you were already half way to where he wanted you before he had even laid eyes on you.  
He got into the drivers side and turned the engine over. In the distance the first of the basketball team had just started trickling out of the exits. He put a steady hand on your thigh as he pulled out of the lot and onto the main road.  
He didn't speak and he didn't look at you the entire way to your house; just kept his hand firmly on you leg. When he took a bump to fast and you very nearly flinched out of your own skin, his grip tightened slightly almost as if to reassure you.  
He pulled into your empty driveway and pulled he keys from the ignition, sitting in silence with you for several agonizingly long moments as he stared ahead at your front door.  
“I'm not going to do anything tonight, Sweetness.” His hand started running down your thigh was he spoke “As long as you behave yourself.” his outstretched hand reached your knee and lightly squeezed.  
After another beat of silence from you he let go of your leg and pried your book bag out of your grasp, taking it with him as he got out -digging though it until he found your keys. He circled the backside of the car and came to a stop at the passenger side door, opening it with a lighter touch than you had prepared for.  
He leaned himself in, one arm braced on the frame above you and the other on the open door to his side. You kept your eyes firmly planted on the dashboard.  
“You gonna sit there all night?” He leaned in closer, curving his back to lower himself to your eye level.  
You expected a slap, or a yank, or a threat to get you out of the car but he just lowered himself further down so he could crouch on his haunches and sling one of his arms across the tops of your legs.  
“It's fine if that's what you wanna do -we don't have to go in.”  
The tenderness in his tone made your skin crawl and your jaw clench and face grimace as you looked anywhere but at him.  
Billy, having assumed you had given him your answer, sat himself down completely on the cracked cement of your driveway. He crossed his legs at your side and brought his face forward to rest his chin on your leg.  
You stayed like that for a handful of long, painful minutes before he filled the silence.  
“Did you puke up you lunch today?” His tone was conversational and he assumed your affirmative answer by the tensing in your body. It was obvious to him that you feared the fall out of not keeping your food down. He appreciated the sentiment of you expecting punishment for not following his orders to the letter of the law. He continued nonchalantly, explaining how he knew of your failure. “Heard some cunts talking about it in class today.” He ran his hand down the leg of your jeans until he found the patch of bare skin of your ankle, rubbing small circles there witch his thumb.  
“It's alright.” He soothed calmly “You did your best.” he kissed the side of your thigh absentmindedly, his hand snaking up the length of your shin underneath your pant leg.  
“You are going to have to eat something and keep it down before I leave tonight, though.”  
You cautiously chanced a glance at him, trying to gauge his mood by his expression. His focus was on your legs as he stroked them.  
“If you keep up this starving yourself you're going to start fainting, you know.” Another kiss was placed on your thigh and he leaned back, retracting his hand from your leg as he went. He rested his weight on two arms outstretched behind him so he could watch you as he spoke.  
“You wanna pick a place to eat?” He studied your expression, your eyes coming to reluctantly meet his gaze.  
“I don't have any money.” Your voice caught in your throat and came out as nothing more than a hoarse whisper. You didn't want to eat and you didn't want to sit there with him and you certainly didn't want to go anywhere with him.  
He waved his hand at you dismissively. “My treat, Sweetness.” One of his knees came up to rest near his chest as he added “I take care of my girls.”  
You guarded your expression carefully, keeping your eyes firmly planted on his chest to avoid his gaze.  
Billy ran his tongue over his lips and waited for you to respond. When you didn't he leaned back in, angling his head down to meet your eye line.  
“You want to choose or you want me to?” He laid his head in your lap, holding your eye as you bit the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from speaking -not trusting your voice.  
“Alright.” He finally said, pulling away from you. “I'll pick.” He rose from the ground to his feet and got back into the drivers side.

The drive back into the heart of town felt much longer than it ever had been before. The quiet in the air between you made your ears thrum and you could swear you could hear your heartbeat if you listened for it. Billy had tossed your bag into the backseat and pocketed your keys. Even if you were willing to risk the repercussions of jumping out of the car at a stop sign, you had no way of getting inside your house without him. A fact you were painfully aware of as he pulled into one of the only two drive thru places in Hawkins.  
He ordered for both of you as you looked out the window. The world continued on in all it mundane ways as if nothing was wrong; as if _your_ world wasn't burning down to the ground and leaving radioactive ashes in its wake. You could feel the heat of the flames on your skin as Billy flirted and teased the girl working the window; both of them ignoring you in the seat beside him.  
When he pulled back out onto the street his hand found your knee and squeezed it softly.  
“That was good, Sweetness.” He praised, keeping his eye on the road before him “You did good.”  
You fought back the guilty knot in your throat for doing exactly as he had wanted. You really were a worthless human being, weren't you?  
He pulled back into the driveway before your house and parked; empty again. Your mom wouldn't be back until after midnight at the earliest, if she came home at all that night.  
“You want to go inside or eat in the car?” He asked, turning the ignition off and looking over to you as he commingled his keys with your own in his jacket pocket.  
You felt too exposed out there; like the whole world could see your shame as you numbly complied to him. It felt as if they were all judging you for it, laughing at your non-resistance.  
“G-go inside.” You whispered. Anywhere was better than where you were, where everyone could see and watch in judgment.  
Wordlessly, Billy reached into the backseat where he had tossed your bag slung it over his shoulder, fisting the grease stained bag of food in his other hand before he rolled himself out of the car.  
You slowly followed suit, trailing him on weak knees up to the door where he fumbled to find the key on your rink and unlock the door with one hand. He swung the door open and held it for you, his arm stretched out to the door and his body on the other side of the frame so you had to press past him to clear the threshold, before he gently closed and locked it behind the two of you.  
He pocketed your keys again and re-positioned the strap of your bag on his shoulder as he leaned down to place a kiss at the crown of your head.  
“Go sit on your bed, Sweetness.” He said softly into your hair.  
On uncertain feet you did as you were told. The terror you wanted to be feeling had been replaced instead with a heavy numb coil in your chest. You could feel your body moving, could feel your own trembling as you made way to your room, could feel Billy following close behind. Your thoughts traced sluggish paths through your mind, like they belonged to someone else and were just passing though your head to get where they were going. Reality became a movie in your head that moved frame by frame in your minds eye; painfully slow and out of focus.  
You sat yourself down on the edge of your bed and Billy closed the door with a soft ' _click_ ' behind himself. He set your book bag and the food down next to you, stepping back towards the door to kick his shoes off before turning back to you and kneeling down before you. He took up your right foot in his hand by the ankle and held it near his chest.  
“I'm going to take your shoes off. Don't kick me.”  
You nodded stiffly and he began unlacing the knots of your worn out sneaker, removing it slowly from your foot then your sock and tossing them into the corner behind the door near his boots.  
“These have holes in them.” He commented dryly as he set to your other foot “You wear these through the winter too? Jesus Christ.” he mumbled as he set your leg down.  
He stayed in his position before you, pausing to scan your face. You were right on the edge of unresponsive -present, aware, but only distantly so. You had already begun to disassociate your self from what was happening; you expected more pain and suffering today and your mind was taking preemptive action to protect you from it. This was the sweet spot. This was exactly where he wanted you to be. This was where he could worm his way into your psyche with gentle hands and calm, reassuring prodding. This is where he began to foster your dependence on him.  
“You want to change into something more comfortable?” He asked to your expressionless face.  
Billy didn't expect you to respond, and when you didn't he blew a breath out through his nose and got up. He had gotten a good look at your wardrobe when he was there the night before and had an idea in mind of what he was looking for. He pulled out a pair of lounge shorts that he had guessed used to be sweatpants before you had cropped the legs off near the crotch to create a baggy pair of short shorts.  
He palmed the folded fabric gently and closed your dresser drawer; returning to you and handing the garment over to you, gently but insistently.  
You took it, your face blank as it gradually registered what it was he wanted you to do. You brows twisted up in a vaguely distraught manner and your mouth opened, then closed again -the words you had wanted becoming lost before you could speak.  
He watched you carefully as he started methodically unbuttoning his shirt. He watched your expression change with his movements, your mind automatically drawing to the worst possible conclusions. He tutted at you gently.  
“I'm a man of my word, Princess.” He began, his outer shirt coming off and then his white wife beater undershirt along with it “I'm not going to do anything tonight.” He handed you the undershirt, patiently waiting for you to take it before putting his shirt back on, leaving it unbuttoned.  
“I want you to change into those, Sweetness.”  
Your lips curved down into a desperate frown “It-...It wont fit...”  
He waved you off “It will. It'll stretch. I promise.”  
You cast your eyes down again, unable to tell if he was doing this to shame you for your size or not.  
“Go ahead and change.” he said while turning on his heel to face the wall opposite you. “I won't look.” he added over his shoulder, keeping his back to you.  
He stood in place for a long moment while you mulled it over, neither of you saying anything until he heard you rise up and the shuffle of your clothes as you disrobed.  
“You can keep your underwear on but take your bra off.” He added without turning his head. You stilled for a beat before there was another round of shuffling. He waited until after it had gone silent again before turning his face to the side to speak, wanting to give you the opportunity to speak up if you wanted to. You said nothing.  
“Done?” He asked over his shoulder.  
You let out a meek “...yes.” under your breath and he turned to face you again so he could take in the site of you idly pulling at the fabric of his undershirt around the hem. It was longer on you than it was on him, and hugged your frame nicely; pulling taught around your breasts and and laying with just enough slack over the curve of your stomach to be flattering.  
Billy resisted the urge to say 'I told you so' as he rounded the the bed, keeping a close eye on you as he did. Something about putting you in a shirt that smelled of his musk and cologne made the possessive and greedy animal in his chest stir. There was a certain kind of permanence to it, in his mind. It made you his in a relaxed, casual way. With you in his shirt he did not feel the need for any preformative cruelty or callous facade; he could be in whatever state he was so inclined to be in that moment. He threw himself face down onto the end of the bed, propping himself up by his elbows.  
“Sit.” He said with a jerk of his head beside him.  
You did with only a second of hesitation between beats; lowering yourself down and pulling at the hem of the shirt to give yourself as much coverage as you could. You leaned yourself up against the headboard with legs crossed in front of you to put at much distance between you and him while still remaining in the spot he had specified.  
He rolled himself slightly onto his side to face you, a hand resting on the side of his face to support his head. “You need to eat something, Sweetness.” He said to you in a low, conversational tone.  
“I'm not hungry,” You mumbled in a breathy whisper.  
“I know, Princess, I know,” He reached for the bag of food between you pulled out the burger and fries he had ordered for you and set them out before you, then did the same with his own. “but you've gotta try to get it down or you'll make yourself sick.”  
You eyed the greasy wax paper containing your hamburger as if it were suddenly the most repulsive thing on the face of the planet. The smell of fried meat burned your sinuses and you couldn't hide the disgusted grimace from your face.  
Billy had already unwrapped his and set himself to eating -taking bites too big for your comfort as you watched him.  
“You have to at least eat the fries, Sweetness.” He said to you between mouthfuls, nudging the paper sack of them closer to you.  
That didn't sound as unappealing. You reached for one, bringing it up to your mouth and taking a small bite of it.  
“Just go slow.” He started, watching you work up the nerve to swallow “Don't rush it or you won't keep it down.”  
After the first few bites hit your stomach, it betrayed you, loudly sounding off a terrible growl. The adrenaline had faded. You were tired, and emotionally shot, and so desperately hungry it hurt. You felt yourself give up, just for a minute. You reached for another fry slowly, then another.  
There, in private where there was no prying eyes, maybe it didn't matter if you fought him or not -if just for a little while at least.

Billy finished his own meal and rolled over onto his back with a satisfied sigh. You realized as you steadily worked on your small bites of fries still that you hadn't seen him eat anything during lunch.  
Had he given you food he had gotten for himself? Just to make sure you had at least one thing to eat that day? You settled back into the headboard of your bed, feeling the tension in your spine release slightly for the first time in hours. The silence between you was not comfortable nor was it comforting, but it was no longer strained.  
Billy rolled over the end of the bed onto his feet, and you didn't even flinch at the sudden movement; just watched carefully as he started rummaging around your room. He eyed things you had displayed on shelves, thumbing through books with worn down and cracked spines. He moved steadily from one end of the room to the other, picking up and turning over anything that interested him in his hands.  
You had no posters, or photos, no framed memories or cherished childhood knickknacks. You were surprisingly utilitarian for a girl your age; books on the bookshelf, strange rocks and smoothed down shards of glass on the floating shelves bolted into the wall, a huge stack of tattered and beaten up used notebooks piled up next to the odd collection. The only real thing of note was a record player sat atop a makeshift shelf of cinder blocks on the wall closest to your bed with a crate of albums below it.  
He absently skimmed through your selection, pleasantly surprised to find albums he himself had and one or two he hadn't gotten around to buying yet. He rolled around the idea of putting one on, but decided against it; not wanting to take the risk of sensory overload sending you back into a panic now that he had finally gotten you calmed down.  
Still bored and looking for something to busy himself with, he set to going through your clothing with earnest. He was unsurprised to find you had very few explicitly feminine things outside of your undergarments. Some boxy button down blouses without sleeves and one or two shorter than he would have expected skirts. Most of your clothes stayed firmly in the jeans and loose fitting t-shirt category.  
Billy pulled out a pair of flared jeans that were reminiscent of the 70's and a shirt that had it's sleeves sheered off, leaving behind two matching triangle shaped tufts of fabric in their place. He laid them out on corner of the bed and turned back to select neatly folded pair of blue cotton panties and a bra to go along with it. He set them both atop the small stack of clothes.  
“I want you to wear these to school tomorrow.” His tone left no room for argument, but you were going to argue anyways as he sat himself back down on the bed, much closer to you than where he had gotten up from. His hand came to make contact with your leg and you were able to force out a full sentence from your lips.  
“Those pants are too tight on my legs.”  
He glanced at you and you turned your gaze down to where his hand rested atop one of your ankles.  
“They fit you in the waist?”  
“Yeah but- They, They're just-” You huffed, searching for the right phrasing to make your stance clear.  
“Tight.” He supplied dryly.  
“...yeah.”  
He pulled your leg out towards him by your ankle, making you jump at the sudden force of his contact. You didn't pull away.  
“You don't have to wear the pants.” He said slowly, rubbing small circles into your ankle with one hand and pushing at the arch of your foot with the ball of his other. “But if you don't, I'll have to come up with a punishment to fit the crime.”  
You slumped down at that, inwardly weighing out the risk-reward-benefits of it. A kick of panic surged up from underneath the fog of comfortable numbness that had settled in your chest at the thought if encoring his wrath before it quickly subsided. You were going to wear the pants and you both knew it.  
He yanked your leg closer to him so he could massage your calf with tender hands.  
“Are your parents ever fucking home?” He asked suddenly, kneading the muscles of your leg in his hand.  
You shifted slightly. “My Mom keeps unpredictable hours.” Which was a lie; you knew exactly when she would be home, which was getting to be less and less these days.  
He prodded the sensitive flesh behind your knee and worked his way up to your thigh, having to lean closer into you to get a better angle.  
“I've been here a few times now and I've never even seen her car.”  
You shrugged, trying to force a nonchalant tone to your voice “Unpredictable.”  
His eyes glanced over you suspiciously, sensing you were inching further and further away from the truth, but he didn't push beyond that and he didn't ask about the father you didn't mention.  
Feeling brave, or perhaps just incredibly foolish, you dared to ask a question of him.  
“Do you do this to other people?” You managed to get out in a cautious whisper. He raised his brows at you slightly.  
“What? Rub their feet?” He had known exactly what you meant, but wanted to watch you flail around on his hook for a moment as you opened and closed your mouth. You were unsure of how or even if you should rephrase to clarify.  
“No- I mean- Other... Uhm-”  
A lopsided self assured smirk came to his lips. “Are you asking if I have other girls?”  
' _Other girls you raped_ ' you mentally finished for him, more to remind yourself of what and who he was even in this relaxed setting.  
He leaned down to kiss the top of your knee in his hands. “I've had a few here and there -back home.” He nipped lightly at your knee and you flinched, expecting more than the soft graze of teeth against your skin. “But you're the only one in Hawkins.” He switched to your other leg, starting with the arch of your foot and working the palms of his hands into your heel before he added with a sly smirk on his face. “Why? You the jealous type?”  
You both knew exactly what you were doing; you were fishing for information. Physically, you were powerless, and under threat of pain and suffering you couldn't act against him -but if you could get a piece of information to use? Maybe you had a fighting chance.  
He continued to gingerly massage up and down your leg, offering you no more information than that he was experienced and proficient in his chosen field of expertise.  
“Hav-” You started and stopped, having to clear your throat to find your voice “Have you ever killed anyone?”  
He shot you a look dead in your face, his eyes hollowed out and icy. “The worst thing I've ever done is make someone wish they were dead.” He said with an unsettling casualness as he continued to deftly work your legs with both hands.  
The inky black thing that lingered in his chest coiled around his lungs when you shifted to pull your leg away from his grasp. He tightened his grip to easily keep you in place. One of his hands came up to run a knuckle down the side of your cheek. “I only hurt my girls when they make me, Sweetness.”  
You drew your lips in between your teeth to form a thin line of your mouth as he reached his hand further back to plant firmly at the back of your head. He pulled you forward sharply, sending you tumbling into him. You barely had time to struggle against him as he arranged you at his chest. He held you there with your head tucked under his chin, one arm tightly clasped around your shoulders to keep you in place.  
“But you're the best one yet, Sweetness.” His free hand came up to grip your jaw -not tight enough to hurt you, just to see if you would fight it. “You wouldn't do anything to make me hurt you, would you?” His grip tightened, squeezing ever so slightly, prompting you to respond.  
“N-No-” You squeaked, pulling away from him lightly.  
He held you firm and released your jaw, his knuckle coming back to stroke your cheek gently.  
“That's my girl.” He murmured into your hair.  
You felt sick, and weak, and relived you were in his good graces still. A guilty shameful knot formed in your chest as he calmly stroked your hair. The heat rolling off his skin in waves burned you and the musk of him -stale cigarette smoke and cologne- consumed you. And for a brief, terrible moment you were comforted by him. He was awful and fearsome and you were afraid of him, but he was also gentle, and as he held you close to him you found his presence there soothing.  
You had been alone for so, so long. Overlooked and ignored. Looked down on at best, invisible at worst. It had been years since anyone had even _looked_ at you. And then there was Billy; cruel and full of rage and tenderness and gentility. For everything he was, he _saw_ you. He paid attention to you. He looked for you, and he looked for you with the intention of looking out for you.  
For that brief and terrible moment, you thought that maybe you should be thankful for whatever he gave you. Because between the moments of violent temperament and threatful cautioning's, he offered you kindness and an overbearing sense of belonging. For the first time since you had read that letter of your mothers, you felt like you were wanted. Which, in that brief and terrible moment, felt really, impossibly good.

Billy had tuned into your subtle forms of nonverbal communication over the last three days. He had kept an eye out for those tiny shifts and ticks that gave away your mental state. When you leaned yourself into his touch ever so slightly, his heart nearly burst with a sense of victorious pride in himself. He had earned that; worked it out of you -pulled it up from the nothingness. He felt a smug sort of entitlement to the rest of you, to all of you. The reaffirming that you belonged to him; something that he had already known, but now you knew it too. A kind of cancerous certainty that crept into your bones while you slept. An undeniable truth, like cigarette butts and shattered glass.  
He pulled you in closer and pressed a kiss to your temple. His nose was buried in your hair and he took in the smell of it. Fresh and sweet from your shampoo and he committed it to memory. It was a uniquely you scent that made him think of open space and the moon shine over the ocean. He was homesick and caught up in the scent of you.  
When he sunk down to lay out on his back he took you with him, holding you in place at his chest so you laid awkwardly half atop him. Billy was actually quite fond of feeling the weight of you on him; of knowing he could lift and pull and move you around in ways you hadn't been before -knowing he was strong enough to handle you as he pleased.  
It would be easier, and less of a strain to do what he did with girls of a slimmer variety. He had tried it a few times, once or twice before; but they were fragile and tender and when they bruised they _bruised_ and their bones cracked under he impact of his fists. There wasn't anything challenging or interesting or special about being able to physically overpower and manhandle them. And he liked the feeling of soft fleshiness in his hands and feeling that if he bent you, you wouldn't snap in two. Which was not to say he _only_ liked heaver women, because that simply wasn't the case, but for his specific purposes he preferred it.  
The hitch in your breathing when he absently snaked his hand under the fabric of the undershirt to stroke the length of you spine brought a smirk to his lips.  
 _So sensitive_.  
Eventually, given enough time, he would learn all your weak spots; the ones that made shutter and mewl and he would use them against you. Eventually, he would know you so well you would do anything for his touch. All he needed was time.  
You shifted slightly, untangling your arm from between the two of you to reposition it outstretched beneath his shoulder. The hand not cradling your head into the crook of his neck reached out behind himself to snatch your hand up in his so he could curl your arm under the back of his neck and up to his other shoulder where he kept in his grip. It was a bold move on your part. Unexpected. But so was the small sigh you let out through your nose that sounded dangerously close to contentment.  
He found a sweet spot at the small of your back that made you jump and involuntarily jerk your hips into his side. He chuckled and filed it away.  
“Ticklish?” He questioned as he lightly ran his fingers over the same spot, getting less of a reaction this time but still another buck of your hips into his to try and angle yourself away from his touch.  
“I-I'm not-!” You choked out, squirming under his touch and pushing your shoulders into him to curve yourself away as he traced his fingers up your ribs.  
“Yes, you are.” He teased, his hand reaching the crook of your neck.  
You strained your neck, twisting your face into his chest to get away from his fingers.  
Billy pressed a light kiss to the crown of your head with a smirk.  
_Cute_.  
He had chosen so incredibly well when he had singled you out that first week in Hawkins. The months he had spent keeping tabs on you felt well worth it just then. Somehow, by the grace of whatever god, you had come to him already half-baked; ready to be formed to suit his needs. He wasn't sure yet what had happened to you that had left you so willing to contour to his whims and so eager to set aside your fear of him after only a handful of orchestrated and carefully controlled moments of tenderness, but he would find out, eventually -and then he would use that against you too.


End file.
